San Jose councilmembers recently expressed concern regarding the alleged misuse of the city’s Flock license plate reader system, following an incident where a San Jose police officer reportedly used the system to share a woman's location with his cousin, who was accused of abusing her. This event, discussed at a recent Rules Committee hearing, has led the Safety Over Surveillance coalition to ask San Jose to immediately suspend the Flock cameras.
The alleged incident represents a significant breach of trust for victims of domestic violence. Individuals are often advised to seek assistance and trust city institutions when they fear someone. In this case, the city’s own surveillance infrastructure allegedly facilitated the person of concern in locating the woman.
While the individual officer responsible should face consequences and rules could be tightened, the issue is described as systemic rather than isolated. It was also predictable and had been predicted. This incident, while shocking, is framed as not surprising given the nature of surveillance infrastructure.
The source material points to specific populations most vulnerable to surveillance, who often experience the initial impacts of its expanded uses. These groups include domestic-violence survivors, citing instances where officers across the U.S. have allegedly used Flock systems to stalk ex-partners and romantic interests. Immigrants are another vulnerable group, with examples of police searches in Connecticut reportedly exposing Flock data to immigration enforcement. Additionally, protesters have been affected, with California agencies searching Orange County’s Flock system for individuals participating in anti-ICE protests.
Defenders of the Flock system often characterize such incidents as “bad apples” or isolated cases. However, the source argues that these “exceptions” stem from a fundamental characteristic of surveillance technology: once information is collected, its application tends to broaden beyond the initial reason for its collection. A tool designed to locate a suspect’s car can be adapted to find an ex-partner, an immigrant, or identify who visited a specific location.
Attempts to prevent this “surveillance creep” through better guardrails are deemed insufficient. Mountain View, for instance, experienced this firsthand. Despite policies that supposedly required the city to individually approve agencies, more than 250 unapproved agencies conducted approximately 600,000 searches of its Flock data within a single year.
The argument is that adding “one more layer of guardrails” will not ensure the safety of mass surveillance, as “the failure is built into the system itself.” Councilmembers are acknowledged for their concern, but the incident highlights that the woman whose safety was compromised faced more than just concern. San Jose now has an opportunity to demonstrate that its declarations of a breach of community trust carry tangible consequences. The Safety Over Surveillance coalition, which includes Blue Turn Indivisible led by Mariya Genzel, continues to advocate for the suspension of the cameras to stop what it describes as subjecting residents to mass surveillance.
